Espresso and Everything After
by lucy the divaqueen
Summary: Bones/Kirk, set after the movie. This chapter:/ Bones explores the self-revelation-y benefits of hard lemonade.
1. Chapter 1

"Bones."

"No."

"C'mon, Bones, please?"

"No. I won't get fired."

He leans into the face of his best friend, faces too close together to be casual, but because it's Jim, it is casual. Much to Leonard McCoy's distress, everything with Jim is casual. He's actually rather sick of it. despite it all, McCoy likes Starfleet, and he likes his job and he likes his privacy and his sanity and control on his emotions, but somehow, James Tiberius Kirk manages to fuck with all of those things.

And it's casual.

"It's just one pill, Bones. Who's gonna know it's missing."

" Jim. No. No fucking way. You're a guy. Whoever she is, let her take care of it. she's the one with ovaries, and she's the one who'll have to jeopardize my career, because I'm not doing it for you."

"_C'mon _Bones, jesus! If I don't get it to Uhura, then Spock'll know something's up! It's for Spock, c'mon Bones, you gotta help or she'll castrate me!"

McCoy senses that by the 'oopsfuck' face that Jim makes that he has just released a Big Damn Secret, and he wonders how on earth Uhura was stupid enough to entrust her baby drama with Kirk, of all people, who has the biggest mouth of anyone (a nice, full, bow shaped mouth that McCoy does NOT notice, because he's not fucking gay. Right? Right. After all, he has a daughter.). He definitely needs to have a talk with her.

(It bothers him that Uhura clearly only went to Kirk because he always makes Leonard McCoy break in the end. No one else can do that, and Uhura knows it)

Kirk's now down on his knees, which is not at all alarming to Bones, because if Kirk and his not-full, not-perfect mouth move a foot forward, then they will definitely be much too close for comfort(but that's not alarming, remember), and Bones has bigger things to worry about than the fact that his stomach clenches when Jim Kirk smiles (such as first leutenent Uhura's need for a morning after pill.)

(Which he also doesn't want to think about)

"Bones. C'mon. I'll start singing."

Bones rolls his eyes and drags a gleeful James Tiberius Kirk to the med lab, where he sits on the table and whistles and hits on the nurses (who hit back) and acts, once again, completely unappreciative.

Bones tells himself that Kirk's going to hell.

**Startrek Fanfic The First Ever. I'm rather too hyped up on The God Of Life aka coffee right now to truly care if I get reviews, but when I crash later, I'll be very sad if there aren't any, so please review if you like. Special thanks to LadyElaine-a for editing.**


	2. Chapter 2

They never notice.

No matter how much he does, no matter how much he takes, Jim always has more to burden him with. Every 'save me', every 'gosh, I owe you', every single _damn time_, Kirk is there, begging for his help, every time he needs something, Bones will be there. Hoping, like the sick fuck he his. Hoping that some day, someone will open their eyes and see what's right there. Every second, every day, hating himself. Hating the panic he feels when he thinks of finally confessing. Hating the fact that he might be gay. It isn't right for him.

He was supposed to be married to the sweet young blond with the pearl earrings and live in a townhouse in Georgia with his baby girl. He hates the way he can't stop himself from staring, the way the word that comes out of his mouth is always, eventually, 'yes'.

He'll do anything for him. Anything.

No one will ever know, but he'll keep doing it. He'll do it all. Whatever "it" is, he's there to wipe the blood away and pretend he doesn't feel sick when Jim comes back with a shapely Indian girl wrapped around him. Pretend that he doesn't hear the moans and smiles of the happy,_ straight_, drunk couple. Pretend he's someone else, someone who is normal, pretend that he doesn't want what he wants. He just lies there on his back and pretends until he falls asleep.

Even in his dreams, he's pretending. Except here, it's better. He has a townhouse with a sweet(stupidly annoyingly arrogant) young blond who would never wear pearls except to piss Bones off and a townhouse and a baby girl, and they say 'yes' back. They say what he wants to hear. They give him what he needs. He pretends up to the point where he hurts all over, his brain, his heart, even his dick in certain instances.

But he always wakes up and when he does, it's to drop a hangover pill in a glass and hand it with a 'yes' to his(not his) sweet, young, and blond _man_.

Bones consoles himself with the idea that maybe one day Jim will shoot Tess, the evil ex, and then his(not his) sweet young blond will be locked up, away from where Bones can torture himself and Joanna will then be in his custody and he can live in peace with his daughter and Kirk far, far away, locked up, being made some 'roided-up murderer's prison-wifey while he and Joanna play "Hungry Hungry Hippos" eight hundred and eighty two times, except without the pearls.

That night, he splashes water on his face. He's getting ready to go on a date with a perfectly nice woman named Frances. He already knows that all he will say all evening, despite her smile and her infectious laughter, is 'no'.

He's such a goddamn masochist.


	3. Chapter 3

"Hey, Bones. C'mere."

"What?"

"Why're ya always so mean to me? I just wanted to say…."

He smiles, squinching his face up like a little kid (because Kirk is totally a toddler) and pinches Bones' cheeks, leaning is very close, so close that Bones can (unfortunately) smell his breath.

Yep.

Gin.

Leonard McCoy shifts his weight and glares sternly and the drooling idiot in front of him, who has collapsed against his friends chest without finishing his sentance in what is actually a fairly womanish manner (which Bones finds funny as hell). Jim's head lolls onto his shoulder and he stares up with annoyingly blue eyes, an annoying mouth slack (so maximum fumes can be directed for his enjoyment, of course) and Bones attempts to shift away. Kirk is going to be getting major shit for this. He probably is too, but it's Kirk who's the drunk one, so he doesn't really care (Kirk is always the drunk one). Chekov and Sulu look at each other and grin, big shit-eating grins that make Bones really, really pissed off(it's not his fault things like this happen).

"What is it?"

Kirk's eyes widen and he looks shocked, absolutely shocked by his new drunken revelation. He reaches up and awkwardly gropes Bones' face, palms smearing across lips and fingers poking in eyes and nostrils. Good, thinks Bones. You deserve to feel my boogers.

"You're pretty."

He reminds himself that this is very, very drunken rambling. He reminds himself multiple times.

He sees Uhura raise her eyebrows and he mouths 'save me' at her, but she just grins and grins and grins.

Jim somehow manages to straighten himself up and has now gripped Bones' face very uncomfortably in his hands and is giving him a look that, if he didn't know better, Bones would generally call his "drunken horny camel" look, except this time it's directed at him, and he's very, very much confused and annoyed and freaked out, but since he has more sense than _some people_, he doesn't go flinging his emotions around all over the place.

Everyone's giggling and Bones opens his mouth to say 'let's get you to a cot, so that I can leave your ass drooling on the floor' but only gets as far as 'let's' when Kirk puts a finger on his lips and Bones feels himself liquefy and then freeze in the time it takes to blink.

The giggling has stopped abruptly and Bones' eyes dart to glance at the crew (keeping cover, always keeping cover) and he sees Uhura grin at Spock, who almost even manages a smile, and his humiliation is utterly complete and he is going to fucking rip James Tiberius Kirk into little pieces of beer(gin)-flavored pork rind.

"You- you should kiss me."

Bones somehow manages to raise his eyebrows and look anywhere but the mouth of his best (straight) friend and say, "No thank you, Captain, I don't think that'd be a very good idea. Now let's get you sobered up before you try and grope Spock next, okay?"

There's a lot of laughter now, and he attempts to drag Kirk away from this Total Disaster #4, but his captain is stubborn (as per the usual) and he finds himself somehow being dragged over to what he has always suspected is Kirk's secret supply of liquor.

"Becky *hic* told me that it'd be hot. D'you think *hic* more people would sleep with me if I acted gay? I mean like, really?"

Kirk sways a bit and then falls back into Bones, who breathes a sigh of relief (heavily tinged with disappointment) that he didn't know he'd been holding.

"Some _men_, maybe. More women would probably sleep with you if you took a mint, though."

Bones rolls his eyes and hands Kirk off to one of the nurses (minions) and goes to do damage control with Uhura.


	4. Chapter 4

Jim gets the pill to Uhura, and all is well on the Enterprise.

That is until Kirk walks in on Sulu and some techie-not-Chekov-as-they-suspected getting snugglie.

He's is so sick of all the drama. Goddamn. He doesn't even want to hear it. He was sick of the Spock/Uhura drama. The fact that it's the two young _men_ who've now found happiness so seamlessly while he's stuck sneaking glances at Kirk and feeling sick to his stomach makes him fucking furious.

So he hides in the Med lab with the lesbian nurse whose name he always forgets and they drink hard lemonade. She's very pleasant and talks about her girlfriend (very pretty, Jim would probably try to talk them into having a threesome) and he lets the inanity of it wash over him. He knows they all notice how he looks when he works(haunted, careless, rough at the edges), and he appreciates her not mentioning it. She begins to comment on Kirk and his antics once, but she notices, she sees the tick in his jaw and she definitely sees the way he downs his glass in one swallow.

She's very nice, actually, he should really learn her name. He would like her, even, if she wasn't bringing up the _one thing_ that for some reason that Bones can never explain (maybe it's the mind numbing fear_) must remain a secret_ no matter what.

She stares at him and he grits his teeth and looks away, and he doesn't want her sympathy.

Later, in his room he realizes that someone's finally opened their eyes.

Somehow, it doesn't make him feel better.

Probably because even though Nurse Wendy _is_ blond and _is _slightly arrogant and _is_ funny as hell and _is_ interested in woman, she'll never be _him_

She'll never be Kirk.


	5. Chapter 5

It is the worst of times.

Every year, he has to do the routine check-ups for the crew. It's standard procedure and Bones has never had a problem with it, really, except this year they decided to add STD testing due to too many on-ship romances. So now he gets to spend his month reading test tubes of skin samples or slides for cervical cancer, injecting penicillin into people's asses and being glared at by Spock for examining his girlfriend.

Bones is professional and efficient and everyone is very surprised and impressed by how un-embarrassing he makes the whole thing. It's still awkward though, when Scotty gets nervous and starts cracking bad doctor jokes, and he still almost gets put in the Vulcan hand grip by Spock when he kindly refuses to let him in to the Med Lab while he's examining Uhura.

That examination, by the way, is completely boring. He prods, he pokes and measures. It's simple.

Well, it's simple until she opens her mouth.

"I think Kirk's been avoiding you."

He glances up from the needle he's filling for her RGN vaccination with a start. Fuck. He knows those eyes. She knows.

She gives him a small smile and raises her eyebrows.

"You know, there might be a reason he won't come in for his checkup. And it's definitely not because he…he knows. You would know if he knew about…that. You shouldn't be afraid of…knowing….that he knows. I think. God. Sorry. I'm making no sense. What I mean to express to you is that I think he might return your feeli-…"

He shoves her vaccine into her arm (not forcefully. He is a good doctor) and she breaks off with a small cry.

"Now, will you please stand on that scale for me, Lieutenant Uhura?"

She stares at him, and he holds her eyes. She knows, but that doesn't give her the right to talk about it, and she should know that. It's his secret, damnit.

Silently, she bows her head and steps onto the scale, respecting his choice.

When she walks out somber and quiet from his examining booth, Spock threatens to report him.

He laughs and turns away. He always has bigger things to worry about.

(This is when Vulcan Grip #2 almost occurs)

AN: I know they are hideously short and irritating and are never updated, but will you review? for me? I'd love it. And would post more.


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